Monday, June 30, 2014

It’s early summer, just past the Solstice and the annual Smithsonian
Folklife Festival celebrates the season near and on the Mall between 7th &
14th streets NW. This year it runs until July 6 and features the cultures of China & Kenya. . Kenya: Mambo Poa
focuses on various aspects new and ancient history of the East African country.
There’s daily music & events.
For runners every morning of the
Festival (10:30–11 a.m.) one can meet at the Kenya House, just off the Mall and join Olympic athlete and long-distance track runner
Tegla Loroupe for a jog through the National Mall. If that doesn’t
resonate there is a humanist connection to consider. Some of the oldest artifacts of human/Homo Sapiens
existence have been discovered there. Kenya is thus one of the early cradles of
human kind. The festival a very nice exhibit on the mall called Searching
for Human Origins in Kenya noting this

Kenya has been the epicenter of
millions of years of human
evolution leading up to our species, Homo sapiens. Before we came along,
however, another species roamed the earth for over a million years. Homo
erectus was the longest surviving species in human history, and evidence
of their success can be found throughout Kenya.

I was there on the first Sunday and was really excited to
see Paleoanthropologist
Rick Potts (director of the human origins program
at the Smithsonian Institution who has significant wok in Kenya AND China!).

The longest running Smithsonian excavation is in Kenya at site called
Olorgesailie. Where Rick Potts and his team have worked to uncover evidence to
explain how early humans in Kenya adapted and survived harsh, changing
climates. This Sunday Potts wasn’t at
the museum or in Kenya. He was signing certificates of kids of all ages as they
successfully dug into the fossil

realm as part of the exhibit. It is always
wonderful to see kids interested in a science like anthropology exercising its
tools and feeling the thrill of discovery and connection.

You could see a range of human origin fossils, replicas
& artifacts including the recent, notable Homo erectus discovery
in Kenya now widely known as “Turkana
Boy.” It’s an almost complete
skeleton that dates back to about 1.6 million years.

A final nod to humanism at the event is a wall that
allows visitors to past up ideas on “what makes us human.” It’s a nice thing to
explore in the presence of our origins. Poets, like Christy Chiang, have tried

Saturday, June 21, 2014

The history of
this holiday starts in the 1980s when several chapters of the American
Humanist Association (AHA) began to celebrate it. But back then there was no
fixed date to celebrate it. Some chapter
took the founding date of the IHEU as the target while other AHA chapter found
other meaningful dates. Starting in the late 1980s and continuing into the
early 1990s, the AHA and IHEU each passed resolutions declaring World Humanist
Day to be on the summer solstice.Finally it stuck.

I like this connection to the celestial-seasonal
variation and setting aside a day is a way for the “ spreading awareness ofHumanismas a philosophicallife stanceand means to effect change in the world.” This year (2014) the day falls on the
weekend so there will be a number of outdoor events to celebrate. And
people do celebrate this longest of days in different ways.

The British Humanist Association’s choir will be
holding a “One Life” concert in London, “a
variety show for the non-religious in celebration of the one life we have.”

The Central New York Humanist Association summer solstice picnic.
Picnics are popular, even if the World Cup is on TV.

Here in DC we have to hope that the showers will be
over by the time for picnics and such planned.
DC Region
Atheists are hosting one planned for 3 pm
in Rock Creek Park.They are
supported by the Washington Area Secular Humanist (WASH.org) as a chapter and have invited everyone from the various
participating groups in the Washington DC Area Coalition of Reason to join
them.Humanists
of UUCF are coming.

TheMaryland Science &
Skepticism Meetup Group (306 W. Franklin Street,Baltimore,MD) will
celebrate World Humanist Day at 6:30 by Watching "The Lord Is Not
On Trial Here Today."

Friday, June 20, 2014

How and why Eric
Cantor lost to (convincingly) to a Tea Party challenger has been a big story
in Washington. The political elites and chattering
class of pundits didn't see it coming, but flash-mob hypothesized about it. One early theory of the “shocked and bewildered”, as Time
put it, was religious and cultural in tone:

“One of the more fascinating
threads that emerged from the cacophony of ideas put forward in the days
following the primary was the effort to find a Jewish dimension to the story.
Cantor, the House Majority Leader, was the highest ranking Jewish lawmaker in
American history, with aspirations to be Speaker of the House. When one adds to
that the fact that Brat is a religious Christian who speaks frequently of his
faith, the temptation to uncover a Jewish angle became irresistible. The New
YorkTimes, the WashingtonPost, the leading Jewish
weekly the Forward,
and a variety of other publications duly turned out articles examining, from
every perspective, the Jewish and religious sides of the election…. David
Wasserman, a normally sensible political analyst, got things going with a much-quoted
statement to the Times suggesting that anti-Semitism
was at play in Cantor’s defeat. Cantor was culturally out of step with his
redrawn district, according to Wasserman, “and part of this plays into his
religion. You can’t ignore the elephant in the room.” Sensationalist headlines
soon followed. The Week, a news magazine, ran a story entitled
“Did Eric Cantor lose because he’s Jewish?” And the Forwardran an opinion
column with the headline “Did Eric Cantor Lose Because He’s
Jewish? You Betcha.”

But there was no elephant in the room. There
wasn’t even a mosquito in the room. “Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, a writer and
lecturer, was President of the Union for Reform Judaism from 1996 to 2012. His
writings are collected at ericyoffie.com.

Culture may have played a part (Eric Cantor was called the leading advocate for Jewish/Israeli issues in Congress)and we’ll have to see if conservative
Jewish pols and evangelical Christian pols start to diverge. But another
factors seems to be Cantor being perceived as lacking in integrity and
political deftness. As Time also noted:

“Cantor’s
problem was less ideology and more a sense that he stood more for his own
ambition than for any definable policies. He frequently reinvented himself with
splashy policy speeches, and toured the country raising money and gathering
chits for an eventual run for House Speaker.”

There are several character issues here
about what Cantor really stood for (aside from what some presume his conservative
Jewish culture.). These were
noted by a number of observers:

“[It's
a] serious wake up call to all incumbents,” said Scott Reed, the top political
strategist for the establishment-friendly Chamber of Commerce. “Time for
candidates to run like they are running for sheriff… not prime minister.”

I think this is a point to
note. In a functioning democracy the
welfare of constituents (there perception o this at least) are the ultimate law,
at least every 2, 4 or 6 years.

To his up close
constituents Cantor showed a mix of avarice, as demonstrated in his numerous steak
feasts mixed with a hint of phoniness, folly & cowardice. It’s
was, in part, a classic words vs behavior issue. Cantor
tried to have it both ways on so many things.
Was he loyal to his base and constituents or to Wall St. and lobbyists? What does his behavior show?

What did he stand for on immigration reform?
His early rhetoric on last year’s government shutdown that had excited the Tea-base
(and sunk GOP’s poll numbers)

ended up making him look weak. It was not enough that Cantor pose as a tea
party conservative—his actions must be tea
party peevish. Without real action the veneer, the
sheen of words wears off. As Cicero said, “false pretensions
fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.”

Cantor like many of the privileged pols we
have now (Jewish or otherwise) forgot that reputation and integrity are important. People
expect that when in power you will follow through on what you say you’re going
to do. It's walking the walk.

Cantor’s credibility eroded rather than built
over time if only because people who heard his words could see the contrast to
his actions as well as his paid for steak dinners. Perhaps you still can't fool
all American voters for very long. Something must ring true.

In the end people and policy are more important than politics...or ideology.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Movies can be an art form mix of cultural elements. I probably
heard the chanting song of German composerCarl Orff’’s "O Fortuna" from his cantataCarmina Buranafirst in a movie. Perhaps
it was the filmThe Doors. Since then that rhythmic tune has become a recognized
staple in pop culture. Harper's Magazine columnistScott Hortonhas commented that:

"Orff’s setting may
have been spoiled by its popularization" and its use "in movies and
commercials often as a jingle, detached in any meaningful way from its powerful
message.”

Orff’ intended the work as a staged work involvingdance,choreography,
visual design and other stage action. It seems pseudo medieval. It
has monkish parodies of chanting and primitive percussion that provides a
background to many situations depicted in movies including pain and misfortune. It does include the words ‘examine the cycle of life and question the source of life’s pain’s’.

The piece is now usually performed in concert halls as a cantata, but also as Modern Dance.

Only
recently did I learn a bit of the background to Carmina Buran setting message
which comes out of 13th-century poems. According to one source
the Carmina Burana “is the largest and greatest collection of
secular lyrics from the Middle Ages. It has proved useful in understanding the (minstrels( goliards, and it has demonstrated that music flourished widely in medieval
times beyond the confines of the Church.”

More on the Goliards later.

Orff subtitled "Carmina Burana" a 'scenic cantata'. The scene
or setting comes from dozens of poems and various student songs in Medieval
Latin and low German. The additional subtitle tells us an interesting bit more.
"Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus
instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis (This has
been translated as – ‘Secular songs for soloists and chorus, accompanied by
instruments and supplemented by scenery)'.

Secular songs?? This makes it a bit more interesting. What is the background to this work from the
Middle Ages?

One
thinks of medieval
poetry being like at - itisreligious in nature. But it turns out to be more interesting than
that. A notable exception to being
religio-centric is the work of the what is
called troubadoursand minstrel
singers (minnesänger). They got into celebrating
the ideal ofcourtly love. And among the most famous of these is
the manuscript collection of Carmina Burana, ˈkɑrmɨnəbʊˈrɑːnə/;Latinfor "Songs from Beuern." (The manuscript was discovered in 1803 at
Benediktbeuern, a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria from which the term
"burana" is derived. So monks were involved at discover as well as
creation.)

Well there is a courtly
tradition but these quasi-vernacular poems and pieces in inMedieval Latin were organized by someone into parts
that deals with topics like mortality
and fate (That is O Fortuna mixed with some mockery in the Introduction) and
nature in its first part. So we have Fortune
plango vulnera (Fortune's blows do I lament)", with following three parts:

, and "Ecce gratum (Anticipated)"; and On
the Lawn (Uf dem Unger) with an orchestral dance, then "Floret silva nobilis
(The noble woods bloom)" These are
quite a contrast with the drummed warning of fortune.

“Were the entire world
mine” seems to set a rambunctious, sensual tone for the rest of the work. In
it, the Chorus sings:

"Were the entire
world mine from the ocean to the Rhine, the whole of it would I forsake that
mighty England's queen awake in my arms intertwined"!

The next part deals with
tender, romantic & courtly love but also but also up close, explicit, and
highly sensual love. Reality intrudes into the medieval fantasy and there is
plenty of it - 131 love (CB 56–186). An example is Sleep
and love:

Come, come keep me company,

I beg you, please be kind to
me.

I beg you, please be kind to
me,

come, come keep me company.

Red lips have me under a
spell.

Come, kiss me and make me
well.

The
poem and story collection (you can read translations here) concludes with bawdy tavern
life and drinking which adds a tasty,
irreverent, and satirical sauce. It’s a bit more like the Canterbury tales than
one suspected and Orff’s music is much more varied than the monkish images
associated with O Fortuna.

What
do we know about some of the people who created these poems? Among the anonymous authors
of Carmina Burana were frocked and defrocked priests and monks, reverent and irreverent students, and wanderers. Some we know including Peter of Blois, Walter of Châtillon and an anonymous poet, referred to as the Archpoet.

"better known for their rioting,
gambling, and intemperance than for their scholarship."

And this source continues to inspire creative source david Bintley, for example provided a modern interpretation of "Carmina Burana" - an “Everyman” story that follows three seminarians as they reject their faith and explore the pleasures of the flesh, including lust, love, greed and gluttony.

“It’s really about what can happen if you abandon your spirituality and seek gratification in temporal appetites,” Bintley explained in a 2011 interview about the ballet.

Bintley premiered "Carmina Burana" in 1995 as his first work as artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB).

“BRB director David Bintley has created a masterwork that will live long in the memories of those who witnessed his electrifying, tender and deeply intelligent work. The dancers, set alongside Carl Orff’s spellbinding choral tour de force, were a feast for the senses. Live entertainment does not get better than that.”

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